Miko's Tears
by Youkaigirl99
Summary: CHARACTER DEATH ANGST! everything is after the final fight with Naraku. The end of a journey, the beginning of heartache.
1. Dead or Alive?

A Miko's Tears, chapter 1  
  
InuYasha was dead.  
  
The cold truth hit me like a ton of bricks as I sat there, holding his bloody shell on my lap. It shouldn't be possible. No, damnitt, it wasn't possible. If I just held him a little while longer, he would stir, or tell me to stop crying for him. But no, that wasn't going to happen this time. He was dead, and I knew it.  
He was as cold as ice, his lips blue, and his face pale, with no hints as to the blood that had so recently flown through him. His long silver hair was matted and covered in his own blood, and his left ear, his furry dog-like ear, had a large slice across it, and was missing it's tip. Both his arms where broken, and his right leg had several claw marks ripped into it. He had a large gash in his stomach and one in his chest as well. His body was bruised and battered beyond repair, but repair would have been useless. His soul had left him. He was dead.  
  
It had been a trap from the beginning. I had sensed a jewel shard in the nearby village, and we had gone to look for it. The village told tales of the powerful demons that lived in the castle on the other side of the forest, and so we set out to find them. We traveled through treacherous woods, and finally reached it to the castle, with only minimum resistance. In the court yard, we found none other than Naraku, the truly faceless Onigumo, Kanna, Kagura, and a brand new horde of demons. We should've known. We succeded in slaying the demons and Naraku's carntaions, but by then none of us where in very good shape. Miroku had been poisoned by the poisonous insects, Sango had yet again been hit by her own weapon, and Inu- Yasha had had his left arm broken and a hole in his chest. We expected Naraku to retreat, but instead he attacked, breaking both Miroku's legs and giving Inu-Yasha another gash in his stomach, and a concussion. With the weak state we had all been in, it was a surprise that Inu-Yasha was the only casualty from that fray with Naraku. But he would never harm another being again. I had killed him in a fit of rage, right before he finished off Sango and Miroku.  
  
Damnitt, if only I had been quicker, he wouldn't have finished off anybody! But no, that wasn't true. Even for Inu-Yasha, the injuries he sustained by Kagura and Kanna alone would have finished him off. There was no chance of his survival.  
  
Bringing me back into reality, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Sango. "Kagome..." She said, and that was all I needed.  
Putting my head on Inu-Yasha's cold cheeks, I cried. After about fifteen minutes of this, I lifted my head to see Sango and Miroku tending each other's wounds. I should do that. I should be taking care of them, instead of crying over a dead body. But I couldn't bring myself to. I couldn't bring myself to leave the side of the one I had loved for so long.  
"Hey, Kagome, you should look at this." cried Shippo from the battle field. He looked a little different from the Shippo Inu-Yasha and I had met so long ago. After three years, he had change considerably. His orange hair had grown to be about the length of Inu-Yasha, and he looked to be about eleven. I don't know how to explain it, but he looked mature. And a little bit to much like Miroku.  
"What, Shippo?" I called, not taking my eyes off of the seemingly sleeping Inu-Yasha. Shippo must have known I wouldn't leave the hanyou's side, so he brought his find to me.  
In one had, Shippo carried the final pieces to the Shikon Jewel, glittering the faint moonlight. And in the other was something that made my heart skip a beat. It was Kanna's mirror. It glowed with the souls it had extracted over the years. But the main aura of the mirror was Inu-Yasha's. I looked down to see that he was still there and saw something that made my heart skip.  
No, Inu-Yasha had not awoken and stared at me, but his body had certainy changed. Now, lying over me, was a fully healed, yet still unconscious, Inu-Yasha. His many cuts, scratches, and bruises where gone, along with the gaping chest wound and the paleness. He truly was an empty shell.  
"Inu...Inu-Yasha?" I whispered, as I felt his pulse. Yes, he was still alive! I didn't know how, and at that moment, I couldn't care less. All I knew was that Inu-Yasha, my Inu-Yasha, still had a heartbeat!  
  
"Kagome, what happened to Inu-Yasha? How is he healed?" Asked Shippo as he looked from me to Inu-Yasha and back.  
"I...I don't know. Here, let me have that mirror. I think we should release some of Kanna's souls while we wait to recover." I said, actually in a cheery voice. That turned Sango's and Miroku's heads to me, and I could only guess that they thought I had given in to grief and lost it completely. Of course, maybe I had.....  
  
After Shippo had left to go help Sango and Miroku with their wounds, I started examining the mirror. I didn't lose my soul, though I was sure I would, but I couldn't help feeling closer to Inu-Yasha when I looked in the mirror then when I looked at his body.  
his soul has left him.  
That's why he hadn't regained consciousness yet, because he had no soul. But, how had his soul gotten into the mirror when he had killed Kanna was a mysery to me. But I was to happy to by confused, so I took out my arrow and attempted to hit the mirror.  
The result was catastrofic. The mirror instantly cracked and split, sending waves upon waves of souls flying from it. I felt the tiny part of my soul that the mirror had kept come into my body, as well as the soul of Inu-Yasha hit his.  
"....K..kagome? Where am I?" Came his voice, as I looked around at the souls flying around me, as if thanking me for releasing them.  
Inu-Yasha was alive. 


	2. Last Smile

dislaimer-I don't own Inu-Yasha or any other characters in the Inu-Yasha  
series.  
  
Warning-adult content, adult language, angst, character death.  
  
This is what happened after. After Sango buried Kohaku, after Kikyo was put to rest. After Naraku died and Miroku's wind tunnel closed. After the jewel was finished. This is what happened after I went to my own time. This is the epilogue.  
Like most epilogues, this won't say what happened in the story. This leaves off at where we destroyed Naraku and all his incarnations and minions.  
  
After Naraku was destroyed, no one knew what to do. Kouga discussed it with his new mate Ayame, and eventually gave me the two jewel shards in his legs. Sango buried Kohaku in a respectful silence, then handed over the last Jewel shard. And the jewel was finished. Kikyo had been killed by Naraku, and Inu-Yasha accepted this with little to no mourning. Miroku no longer even needed an heir, because he was no longer in danger of the wind tunnel. Kanna, Kagura, Hakudoshu, all dead. We no longer had something binding us all. The deaths I had witnessed, the tears my friends and I had shed, none saddened me more than that fact. The fact that we no longer could be together.  
  
It took four weeks for all of us to heal from the wounds Naraku had inflicted. Miroku might never recover from the wounds on his spine that he had received from Kagura. Even more of Kouga's pack had been killed, making wolf demons extremely rare. I had broken a rib and Sango had fractured a tybea and would always wear the scar that Naraku had given her face. And Inu-Yasha....he had been almost killed, and would have been destroyed if not for Kanna stealing his soul before it left his body (A/N-that's from Miko's Tears, which you can read as a seperate story.) He was healed entirely when he awoke. He got quite a bit of medical experience helping Kaede heal us.  
  
After everyone was healed to the best of our ability, it was time to split paths. Miroku and Sango had married and would remain peaceful in Kaede's village, trying to repopulate the blood of the Taijai. Shippou had been adopted as their son, but Kouga had volunteered to train him incase he 'wanted to be a demon and not a demon killer.' All that was left was Inu- Yasha and my fate.  
I had told Shippou that I was going home for a little, and would come back, but from the glances that Miroku and Sango gave me, I realised they thought I was leaving them forever. After ardently good-byeing Shippou, I flung my now empty pack over my shoulders and moved into the forest to the bone eaters well.  
Sango and Miroku had been right. I wasn't planning on coming back. I was planning on leaving, forever. I was going to give Inu-Yasha the jewel, and go back to my own time.  
He was sitting in the Goshinki, starring down into the Bone Eaters well, when I arrived. At first, I thought he didn't notice me, till he jumped down and stared at me, with that heartbreaking expression on his face.  
"You're leaving." he said, more of a declaration of sadness than a question. He looked away from my face, and I remember almost feeling his dejection.  
"Yeah." I said, looking the other direction, blushing. "I have to go home for a little while. Here." I reached into the pockets of my jeans (my last school uniform had been torn) and held out the jewel. "Now you can become a full demon, like you always wanted." I didn't even look at him, waiting for his shout of victory as he lifted the marble sized jewel from my hands. Instead, I felt his clawed hand slowly close over mine.  
"No." He said as his eyes caught mine. "Keep it." He jumped back up into the tree. "But I'm only lending it to you, ok? Now you have to come back, just so you can give that back to me." I saw a smile through the trees. A smile that no one had seen for the longest time. A smile that I would never see again. 


End file.
